Sweeney Todd The Vampire Barber of Fleet Street
by SailorKittyKat
Summary: Benjamin Barker is an ordinary man. He lived happily with his wife and daughter. But something happens to him, changing the course of his whole life. After he becomes a barber, he meets a mysterious family of vampires-which, they claim he is too.


Chapter 1: Change

"Daddy! Daddy! Look!" Marie, Benjamin's two year old daughter eagerly reached for the gray rabbit that ran past his feet.  
"Yes, a rabbit. Do you see how fast he goes?" Benjamin put Marie down and she toddled after it.  
"Bunnee!" she squealed. Then a small bird flew by, drawing her attention away from the rabbit. She began to follow that instead.  
"Benjamin! Marie! Dinner!" He picked up his daughter and hurried back into the house.  
"How was the walk?" she asked, putting a roll on Benjamin's plate. "Did my baby act up out there?"  
"It was fantastic," he replied. "Marie was fine. She loved the rabbits."  
His wife smiled beautifully back at him.  
After dinner, they walked outside again in front of their house. Marie screamed as she chased fireflies around the lawn. She grew tired, so they brought her back inside. She immediately fell asleep in her crib, smiling as she slept.  
Benjamin and his wife stayed up half the night discussing their day. She fell asleep in his arms, and Benjamin thought about how he should take another walk tomorrow.

Benjamin awoke to see his wife cooking in the kitchen. Marie was still sleeping. He cleared his throat.  
"Yes, dear?" his wife said.  
"I'm going to take another walk," he declared. "I won't be long. I should be back before breakfast."  
She smiled and nodded again.  
Benjamin jogged to the forest and looked around.  
He saw a flash of gold and silver. He zoomed in the spot where the unnatural colors where.  
A pair of eyes stared back at him.  
It was a person. A person so beautiful, Benjamin couldn't tell if it was a boy or a girl. The person's hair was golden, gently waving to their shoulders. They had skin so pale that it looked like a sheet of paper. Their eyes...were blazing red. They sent shivers down his spine and shook the cores of his bones. The eyes stared back, fixed upon Benjamin's throat. He was so frightened, that he couldn't hear his heartbeat anymore.  
The perfect person lunged.  
Benjamin fell to the ground.  
The person was on top of him, and stared at him with those _horrible_ red eyes. He tried to get from under, but the person was so strong that the attempt felt feeble to even himself.  
The skin was so _cold_, he shivered from fright and hypothermia.  
The person's teeth cut into his throat.  
Benjamin screamed.  
Pain. Agonizing pain shot through his whole body. It felt like a crushing weight had pressed right onto him. He screamed, breaking the blood clots in his eyes.  
He burned.  
A fire blazed inside of him, scraping every part of his body. He screamed and screamed, blackness covering him up. Before the blackness took over, Benjamin saw the face of the perfect person, staring at him.  
Nothing but fire and pain, pain and fire.  
Blackness, redness, every time he looked up...  
Help. Please just let me die. I don't want to live another second.  
Kill me, kill me, kill me...  
He lay, thrashing on the ground. Suddenly, he felt the crushing weight of more and more torture.  
_Just let me die._  
The endless fire ranged inside of him. What was happening? Was he _dying_? If so, let it happen already!  
His heartbeat sprinted faster and faster, the fire jerking inside of him in every direction. It licked up to his throat, and surrounded his chest in a blazing inferno. His heart seemed to get faster and faster every minute, the fire getting _hotter_...  
The fire raged on.

The hideous fire slowed inside of my fingers. It was fading, but slowly.  
I didn't move. I sat perfectly motionless.  
My screams had stopped.  
Had I died? Maybe when you die, the pain of whatever killed you fades before you wake up?  
Ridiculous.  
How long had I burned? Hours, days, weeks, months, years? Endlessly?  
It slowed from my forearms, my wrists...  
It was ending. It's almost over. Can I just go to heaven or whatever is after death?  
It slowed from my elbows, my shoulders, my calves, my thighs...  
Ah. This is stupid. I just want to die so this stupid fire could end.  
My throat.  
Oh, I was so _thirsty_. The dryness I called my mouth was _awful_. I didn't want to move, I was afraid I might mess something up in the process of dying.  
It slowed from my chest, my waist...going up and up...  
I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing it was almost over. Knowing I can tough this out. Be a man.  
My heartbeats grew slower, and slower...  
I didn't move.  
One heartbeat...a minute...another heartbeat...five minutes...a slower, deep heartbeat.  
My heartbeats are ending?  
I didn't move, so much as curling my hands into fists. The fire was totally extinguished everywhere else except for my throat. Ouch.  
Then with one last ga-_lump_, my heartbeats ended.  
I blinked and gazed above me.  
I could see everything. The whole forest was so clear and defined and sharp. I could see every little splinter of wood in trees for miles. I smelled lilac, buttercup, daffodils, dogwood, forsythia, honeysuckle, iris, jasmine, periwinkle…I inhaled, scorching my throat. I saw every stick in the cardinal's nest. I saw the babies inside. I could basically see the photosynthesis going on inside of the green leaves. I could hear the rushing water that reminded me of the awful dry thirst in my throat.  
I ran right to it. But my running was so fast I made it there before I took a breath. I sat perfectly still.  
I had no heartbeat.  
I ignored that for a moment, and shoved my face into the water, lapping it up. But it tasted dreadful. The water didn't quench my thirst—it actually made it worse. I spit it out with a wince.  
That's when I saw my reflection.  
I was so beautifully perfect that it took me off guard. My skin was so pale that it stood out in horrible contrast to where I was. I was every bit as lovely as the person who bit me. But as I tried to remember them, it was as if looking through a tinted screen, like a dark veil was covering my face. My eyes were as red as the person's were in the dimly lit memory. The memory was shrouded in darkness. It was as if my eyes before couldn't see anything. This flawless face that was staring at me from the water was nothing like my old one. Sure, I had black hair like I did before, but…there was a strange white streak in it.  
I couldn't find me in the reflection.  
I could see every bubble in the water. I saw tiny organisms swimming around, which made the water even less appetizing to my scorching thirst. I turned away from the perfect alien in the water. I gulped, and smelled something leaking moisture into the dryness of the forest.  
A mountain lion. The large lion walked across a ledge near the southeast. I ran again, the wind flowing in my hair, the ground feeling like nothing under my feetL Some strange instinct snapped as soon as I felt the warmth, and the moisture from the lion leaking into the dry air.  
I leaped at the lion, lunging for its throat.  
The lion collapsed on the ground, trying to fight me. My strange instincts made me rush for the neck, the part where the warmth pulsed the strongest. The blood tasted so good that I didn't stop until the lion ran dry. The wet blood warmed me down to my toes, and the lion stopped screaming. I shoved it off me. The thirstiness started again suddenly.  
But that was the last thing on my mind.  
_What did I just do?_ Did I just _drink_ a _lion's_ blood? What was _wrong_ with me? That's sick! Inhumane!  
And what is this horrible thirst? What did that perfect person _do_ to me?  
My wife. Marie.  
I ran back, the blinding speed nothing to me. I zoomed through the trees, following a luscious meaty scent, and found my home. I swallowed.  
"Honey? Marie?"  
My _VOICE._  
It sounded seductive and deep, and I gasped and shivered. It was so...so... _attractive_ that I stopped talking immediatley. What happened to my old self? I only, only want my wife and my daughter. If I could have them, and they could accept me, than this wouldn't matter.  
I hurried inside the house, unintentionally knocking my door down. Not just knocking it down, but _crushing_ it. Crushing it into dust. It was so horrible that I just stared.  
I stepped over my door that was now blowing dust and walked into the kitchen.  
There was no sign of my wife.  
She wasn't in the kitchen. I smelled her—she smelled like cinnamon. But there was nothing. She had vanished into thin air.  
My jaw dropped, and I flying ran up the staircase, and into Marie's room.  
She wasn't in her crib.  
There was no trace left of my daughter.  
My wife, my daughter, had both disappeared.  
I bowed my head, clenching my teeth and my hands to fists, a low sob escaping my mouth. Even the sob sounded perfect.  
But no tears came.  
_What?_ I can't _cry _either? They should just rip my _non-existent _heart out. Now.  
The red eyed person.  
He or she was the one who'd taken my little family. I stood perfectly still, not moving.  
I didn't have to breathe either.  
What had happened to me? Is this some hideous dream? There is no way that I'd ever want to live without my wife and my daughter.  
I shot out of my house, out into the unknown world, leaving Benjamin Barker behind me.


End file.
